Walmart's Allswell Is Lugging A Mattress Around The Country In A Tiny Home

On February 7, 2019 Allswellwill reveal their most innovative marketing concept yet—touring a custom-built tiny home featuring the brand’s bedding and mattresses. This super chic tiny house was custom-built by famed tiny homebuilders Modern Tiny Living.

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This tiny kitchen is big on style.

Allswell

Launched in 2018, Allswell was created to compete with smaller startups such as Brooklinen and Parachute Home. In recent years, Walmart has been acquiring smaller brands including ModCloth, Bonobos, and even plus-size apparel retailer Eloqii.

Allswell is Walmart’s first digitally native brand, but they operate independently with their own offices and creative autonomy.

The Price Of A Good Night’s Sleep

A place to get a good night's rest.

Allswell

Allswell is similar to its parent company in the way that they offer discounted prices on items you would pay more for elsewhere. But their product line is streamlined. The real draw is the price of their mattresses.

According to finder.com's analysis of price data from 29 mattress retailers in December 2018, the average mattress costs $926.24. The average cost of a queen mattress is $966.76. Allswell’s Deluxe Hybrid is $585, while their entry level is just $345. Even the brand’s premium product is significantly less expensive than the competition.

Direct-to-consumer mattress brands have been popping up in recent years, but consumers hesitate to buy them, even for a discounted price because they can’t try before they buy. However, according to the president of Allswell, Arlyn Davich, the real issue is actually getting consumers to understand the benefits of a hybrid mattress. “While many folks have grown familiar with memory foam bed in a box mattresses over the past few years, most customers haven’t yet experienced the new innovations of Hybrid (coils and memory) bed in a box. We’re excited to bring more awareness to this innovation.”

Tiny Home Tour

Sweet dreams.

Allswell

The tiny home tour is a result of customers inquiring about where they can try the mattress in person. There are plans to stop in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland.

Tiny In Size, Big In Luxury

A tiny bathroom.

Allswell

Rachel Durkin, who is Allswell’s head of retail, chose Modern Tiny Living to design the home, which took six months to create from concept to life.

But much like mattresses, selling consumers on tiny homes has its own set of challenges, according to Rachel Pitman who is the designer and cofounder of Modern Tiny Living. “The main challenges I find when designing tiny homes are space and structural integrity. Though most people choosing to ‘go tiny’ have already simplified their lives, it is always a challenge to make room for all of the components that a client desires in a 200 square foot tiny house on wheels, keeping in mind that you have to work around obstacles like wheel wells from the trailer and extra studs and headers to keep the structural integrity needed for a home traveling down the highway at 65 mph.”

When creating the concept, Durkin wanted to make sure the tiny home didn’t feel like yet another branded experience. “I wanted to incorporate aspects of our aesthetic while maintaining the integrity of a home, not a branded experience and storefront.”

Durkin was involved in the process, sending inspiration photos and working with Modern Tiny Living in the overall conceptualization of the space. “Being that this is a wholly customizable home, I partnered with Modern Tiny Living on every detail, from appliances to lighting fixtures to finishes, color palettes, hardware, and so on. It was a process where we held hands very closely weekly and sometimes daily.”

Twin mattresses.

Allswell

While Allswell worked to avoid too much branding, the tiny house is still incredibly social media friendly. There is a custom-tiled “It Was All a Dream” shower and a bird’s eye photo booth that looks down on the master suite mattress. There are also plenty of props as well as customized signs.

If this doesn’t sell customers on Allswell, it might just sell them on the house itself, which is available for a starting price of $100,000.